Cubs plaza's new name (for now): The Park at Wrigley Field

Tom Ricketts has a new moniker for the open-air plaza he is building next to Wrigley Field—until he can find a company to put its name on the place.

The new 50,000-square-foot space adjacent to the ballpark's west side that the Chicago Cubs owner has been developing over the past two years has been dubbed the Park at Wrigley Field, Ricketts family venture Hickory Street Capital announced today.

In a statement, the family's development company said it has hired Los Angeles-based sports and entertainment marketing agency WME-IMG to sell naming rights to the area and program events in the plaza year-round.

That will include things like concerts, farmers markets, food and wine festivals, and other attractions that the Cubs owners plan to host, with an eye on turning the plaza into a "town square for the North Side," Ricketts said earlier this year.

"We look at the opportunity to really animate and provide value on our little piece of land and our little strip of the street all year-round," Ricketts told Lakeview Chamber of Commerce members at a June 1 luncheon. "We talk about the beauty of the field and the way it's framed by the plaza to be one of those special places on earth . . . like when you're walking through Europe and you come across that special castle or palace or fountain, and you see people just being there because being there itself is beautiful and cool. That's what we want Wrigley to feel like."

Hickory Street Capital will tap into WME-IMG's expansive portfolio of sports, entertainment and fashion clients to help fill the plaza with events, a Ricketts family spokesman said.

"WME-IMG's capabilities across naming rights, brand partnerships, event production and talent representation ideally position us to make the Park at Wrigley Field a must-visit venue within one of the world's most iconic sports communities,” said WME-IMG Chief Content Officer Mark Shapiro in a statement.

The Park at Wrigley Field stands to be as close to a stadium naming rights partnership as we'll see at the 102-year-old ballpark, which is one of 10 in Major League Baseball without such a deal. Whatever brand ties itself to the area outside the venue may be one of the most visible corporate names on the expanding Wrigley Field campus.

The benefit of selling naming rights to an area outside the park as opposed to the stadium itself is that proceeds from the deal would not be subject to MLB's revenue-sharing rules. That is why Hickory Street Capital, not the Cubs, is overseeing the development of the plaza as well as Hotel Zachary, a 175-room, 238,000-square-foot hotel going up across Clark Street from the plaza.